Happy tail accidents?

[shawnthebuilder]

So I'll post pictures later.

Basically I had to hit the brakes hard at a light, and my heli stand fell forward, causing the tail fin to snap, boom moved, and landing gear dislodged. Hoping it's the only damage and no other damage is currently visible.

On inspection, I came up with a simple idea for putting more of an angle on the landing gear to get the tail off the ground. It's been bugging me that the tail blades hit the ground so easy cause the tail fin seems a bit short on comparison (never had that problem with the 450x).

to summarize, it uses a spare radio tray cross member, longer screw to replace the one holding the carbon fiber canopy mount, two sets of screw and washers to secure the radio tray cross member, and some washers for spacers. Minor (seriously, simple plastic shaving) modding required.

This allows the stock carbon fiber landing gear plates to still be used

Sent from my HTC Desire 510 using Tapatalk

[shawnthebuilder]

Upon checking the angle, after getting the lift on the back side, I've decided I need to "lift" both the front and back cross members to get a moderate angle.

Hoping to finalize things tonight after my son falls asleep, if I don't also... man the sun beats down on you when you don't feel it 9 months out of the year.

Sent from my HTC Desire 510 using Tapatalk

[shawnthebuilder]

so i got it done. i think it looks really good.

additional weight is minimal (2 radio tray cross members). the angle looks aggressive, but keeps the canopy off the ground while giving the tail more than ample clearance. blades are no where near to the ground in front. the center of gravity was not changed. even though the tail is minimally moved to the center (and up), the battery is also lower (and down) proportionally.

i had to shorten the bolts that went through the plastic holder for the carbon fiber landing skids. since they are not tightening up around the cf frame anymore, they ended up bottoming out in the cross member.

you can also see in the first picture how i had to cut out a space at the top of the two front plastic cf landing skid holders so that they fit around the cf frame. if you look at the second and third pictures, you can see how the black plastic grip, and the cf frame, interfered with each other. since the grips are not sandwiching the cf frame between the cross member and the grips anymore, this compromise was made to allow the new angle and additional cross members to replace the originals.

the weight of the heli is completely supported on the bolts going through both cross members now, except for some weight resting against the plastic cf landing gear holders (but not rigidly connected there)... however, the landing gear isn't meant to withstand hard landings, so i am ok with it being a point of failure in case of a "hard" landing (which i would suspect would mean broken parts anyways, besides just landing gear and a few bolts).

i hope to get it back in the air within the next two days, at least for a test hover out front. i suppose i can do that without a tail fin. haha... (that's going to have to be ordered)

[shawnthebuilder]

i decided it would be more clear with one more picture. here you can better see why removing the material from the plastic holders for the landing skids was necessary for fitting. it actually looks like i could use to remove a little bit more plastic. i was concerned about making the material too thin to the point where it would break into two pieces.

[dunkonu23]

Looks great, Shawn! Thanks for pointing me to it, sir!

Scott

[shawnthebuilder]

Thanks! It took a few hops to get used to landing with the added angle (taking care to avoid a blow over on spool down in the wind today was interesting).

Definitely learned a little about flying in 10-15mph wind with 25-30mph gusts with a large 450 class lol.

I'm very happy with the mod. I'll replace the tail fin for good measure, but i don't think I'll be worried about large gravel anymore anytime soon

Sent from my HTC Desire 510 using Tapatalk

[shawnthebuilder]

Oh. And it feels rock solid too. I can't get it to wiggle at all. I think the screws draw the cross members and plastic pieces tight up against the cf frame

Sent from my HTC Desire 510 using Tapatalk